


Le nom que j’ai dit à la nuit

by weirdlyabnormal



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-23 12:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17683925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weirdlyabnormal/pseuds/weirdlyabnormal
Summary: Whilst seeking respite from her usually miserable life, Eponine discovered her own safe corner of the city of Paris- the balcony of a seemingly undisturbed home. The singing of the girl next door soundtracks her days, and slowly but surely her life becomes filled with warmth.





	1. le matin

A lazy river of rain lapped at her feet.

If only she was allowed shoes. Her father could surely spare a few sous for a pair of cheap fabric shoes from the market, but her comfort had never been his priority.

She had once saved up, skimming coins from the top of the money she made to buy some for herself. Her father had made her sell them, and then beat her so hard she couldn’t walk straight for two days.

Her feet had slipped on the wet stones as she’d scaled the guttering of the building overlooking the river bank. She struggled to pull herself up and onto the balcony in the rain, flakes of rust turning her rough hands orange.

This was her favourite place in all the city. The balcony of the slowly crumbling home had become the only place she could really feel there was no chance of being watched. The woman who lived there was old, barely leaving the home, and never receiving visitors. She was sure that the old woman didn’t know she was there, the great bay doors behind her never darkened, and even if she did Éponine would easily be able to outrun her. Éponine sat in the rain, knees pulled to her chest as she watches the insects crawl up the ivy wall climbers to seek shelter from the storm.

This balcony had another benefit for her too, the family who lived next door. A young woman, tall and blonde, often sat in the beautiful garden one house over underneath Éponine’s balcony, and she would crane her neck to get a good look over the tall fence between gardens. In the summer, pink roses spiralled over this shared fence, attracting hundreds of small bees the blonde girl’s father used to harvest honey. Now, in the dwindling weeks of winter, the roses were gone, but the girl remained. In the freezing air she would sit, drinking imported tea and catching her death in many modest layers of dyed cotton as Éponine watched from above. Sometimes she would sing, slowly and delicately to herself, anything from lullabies to modern compositions. Éponine loved the days her lilting voice lifted through the air to soothe her, to fill her with feelings of steady fondness.

 She liked to imagine what her life could have been like if she had been born into that home. In her dreams, her dark hair wouldn’t be matted with filth, and instead would be tied loosely and delicately underneath a flowery bonnet. Her skin would not be scared and burnt, and she would show her cleavage in a ladylike way with an array of flowing, corseted dresses. She would wear only pale colours, and she would always, always have shoes.

When she had first seen the girl, she had planned to rob her. She left books and fountain pens lying about the garden, and Éponine often saw the glint of jewellery around her neck and on her pretty fingers. Her father was out during the days (and often the evenings too), and she looked clever enough to realise her life was worth more than a couple of jewels. She was an easy target to make a few hundred francs, and that could buy her a few months of not having to find desperate ways to pick up the extra for her father.

But then something changed. The soft curve of her face and the delicate muscles of her neck were too pretty to imagine scared. If she stole from her, would she still sit in the garden alone? Would she still sing summer through winter, copying her favourite poetry stanzas again and again onto the pages of leather-bound notebooks? That, Éponine thought, was an unimaginable theft.

And so she sat. And she watched. Even on days like these, when she knew the girl would not leave the warmth of her fireplace for the chilling rain. Éponine had never seen beauty before this girl, and as if she were a sunset, she found she could not bear to look away.

She had never been good with her letters, only knowing the odd word here and there, but she had vowed to herself to learn. By next spring she would be able to write enough to explain to the girl how much she meant to her, before she left Paris forever. Over the years she had been able to hide a few items here and there that would be able to pay for her and her sister’s new life. Some of the students she drank with had told her stories of the rural towns they had grown up in- and she had grown enchanted by the possibility of an independent life. She would be a spinster, but she would never again be a whore. She would never have to be touched by a man again if she did not wish, once she had left.

For now, she let the rain drool down her face, losing herself once again to her dreams.

 

* * *

 

_One week later_

It was a clear day today, and Éponine’s feet were sure and steady as she climbed the building and pulled herself over the railing and onto the cracked tiles.

Éponine started when she saw the balcony. On the floor was a china plate with a lump of bread, cheese, and some green ripened grapes. Who had left them here? Éponine hadn’t eaten properly in days and found it hard to resist, but she did not trust it. Tentatively she tried the door handle to find it unlocked. Opening the door a little, she looked inside the room, taking in the glory of the wallpapered room filled with books. Hundreds and hundreds of books.

Today she had brought the scrappy little bible her father kept for cons to practise her letters, and next to these novels her little book looked small and uncomfortable. In the middle of the room, the old woman sat, facing the fireplace embedded in the wall opposite. Éponine’s dirty feet blended into the dusty floorboards as she stood just inside the open doorframe.

‘I was wondering when you would try the door.” A voice from the upholstered armchair spoke.

“I beg your pardon, Madame?”

“I’ve left it unlocked for you for months.” The woman turned in her chair to take Éponine in. The woman’s hair was grey and curled, deep wrinkles cutting into her face as she smiled. She was dressed in a nightdress far fancier than any outfit Éponine had ever owned, and she had a small table full of worn, half-read books next to her.

“All it took was a bit of food to get you to try the door?”

“I- I haven’t been eating much recently Ma’am. I’m really sorry for enterin’ your property these last few months I just haven’t got anywhere better to go, and it won’t happen again, but just please don’t tell the coppers… my father would have my hea-“

“Shush girl. Eat your food, it is for you, not the birds.”

Éponine shuffled to collect the plate and returned to the room, nervously making eye contact with the older woman. She remembered to mummer ‘thank you’ in-between large bites of bread, hunching over the plate to avoid dropping any crumbs.

“Tell me, what book is that you have there, girl?”

“The Bible. I’m tryin’ to learn my letters”

“Well done girl. I love a bit of character. I am in need of a maid, and I thought, since you have nothing better to do during the day than sit on my balcony, I would offer you the job. I will pay you well, you may eat all you wish, and when you have finished making my meals and undertaking general upkeep of my home and affairs, I will assist you with learning your letters.”

“With all due respect Ma’am, I don’t think you’ll be wanting me… the ladies will talk, and I’d never be at all presentable enough to be a proper maid… and I only know how to cook stews”

“I’ve been talked about my whole life. I was the child of an unmarried woman. And while my bastard father at least had the decency to pay my way through life, no man would touch me, and every honourable woman delighted in humiliating me. I have quite delightful clothes in storage from when I was young that you may borrow, a hot water tap for your cleanliness, and more satin shoes than I can count. As for cooking, there’s nothing you can’t learn from my mother’s old recipe book. I don’t like to leave the house, so I’ll need someone fit to get my shopping too. You look like you could need a job. I have more money than I know what to do with, and I hate how boring those trained maids are. No, you’ll do just fine.”

Éponine’s eyes had widened slightly. It seemed like a good offer, but when would she be able to see the blonde girl if she was inside helping all the time? On the other hand, at least this way she would learn enough to be able to write to her, and she would get an honest living for the first time in her miserable life.

“I guess… yes Ma’am thank you.”

“You may address me as Madame Durand. And you?”

“Éponine. I- I don’t like my surname.”

She was directed to the room with the water tap to begin scrubbing her filthy skin in the modern china sink, soaking her matted hair. Once she had finished, her hair was no longer thick with grease (though it still didn’t have the same shine of the blonde’s next door), and her skin had regained its normal hue. Next, she returned to the room with Madame Durand to find her slowly walking back to her chair, holding a simple blue dress.

“Whilst inside my house, or whilst working on my behalf, you may wear this dress. You shall have to go downstairs and open one of the boxes in my hall closet to find a bonnet and pair of shoes that match.”

Éponine took in the dress with great interest. It must have been old, the simplistic style long unfavoured by the socialite woman she had watched from afar, but the satin fabric was smooth in her hands. The old woman’s wobbly fingers showed her how to tie the dress properly before she put it on. She was transformed; in the woman’s dusty mirror she looked like a new person completely.

She was set to work scrubbing the windows of the woman’s home. As she worked, the gentle words of a song floated through the closed, and then tenderly opened window:

_Je veux que le matin l’ignore_

_Le nom que j’ai dit à la nuit,_

_Et qu’au vent de l’aube, sans bruit,_

_Comme une larme il s’évapore._

_Je veux que le jour le proclame_

_L’amour qu’au matin j’ai caché,_

_Et, sur mon cœur ouvert penché,_

_Comme un grain d’encens il l’enflamme._

_Je veux que le couchant l’oublie_

_Le secret que j’ai dit au jour_

_Et l’emporte, avec mon amour,_

_Aux plis de sa robe pâlie!_

 

 “Are you listening to Mademoiselle Cosette? What a pretty girl she is, and her father is so godly too. He buys food for me when my knees are especially bad, and he always brings me a pot of their honey in the summer.”

Cosette. So that was her name, the girl who had so enchanted her imagination.

She made Madame a simple dinner of _Bouillabaisse_ from ingredients which individually cost more money than Éponine could imagine; the fish alone would have cost her several days of pickpocketing. The recipe was old, and the paper was stained with drops of deep brown liquid, but the instructions were detailed and clear. After gutting the fish and carefully removing the spindly bones she peeled and chopped the root vegetables carefully. Her hands were deft and quick while she gently heated the cheaper fish to form a broth. She added the herbs exactly as the recipe said before mixing the ingredients together and leaving to boil over the fire. She went out the back doors to the garden to find some flowers to put on the table for dinner. This was inspired mostly from when she had watched the man and Cosette eating outside in the summer with a great bunch of wildflowers springing in-between them, torturing herself by looking at their glorious food. Their meals were simple, but filling; rough rye bread with cheeses, meat and wine.

Cosette was no longer singing, but an occasional cough or sneeze above the winter birds’ chimes alerted Éponine to her steady presence. She had never been so close.

Returning inside, heather under her arm, she removed the stew from the fire’s heat and served it into a plain china bowl, placing it on the dining table’s tablecloth embroidered with broderie-anglais. She helped Madame to her seat in the room, turning to leave before she was called back in and asked to join her. The food was piping hot, and Éponine had to stop herself from eating the same speed she would at home: scoffing the watered-down stew before her father licked her bowl. They talked about what Éponine would like to do once she had learnt her letters- to which she had mentioned how much she would love to read the paper and write letters.

After eating, she changed into her normal clothes and helped Madame to her bedroom. She left the house quickly from the great green wooden doors to enter the hectic city streets. She had wanted to keep the shoes but knew her father would take them and then ask her where she had got them from. This new job was a stroke of luck that belonged to her alone.

The couple of sous she had earned that day burning a hole in her hand, Éponine walked in the breezy evening to the café where some of the Parisian students drank. Only one of the regulars had tried to place his hand up her skirt, and that was when he was pissed. When he’d sobered up, he apologised; something Éponine was not used to. They usually brought her drinks and let her hang about, but out of pity or curiosity, she did not know. Marius and Feuilly were her favourites, both genuinely taking an interest in her life. She could not wait to tell them the news!

“Oh, Éponine! You must let us buy you a drink.”

She grinned as she flashed him her pennies. “Don’t worry Marius, I’m independent now.”

He laughed and clapped her on the back. The noise in the café was getting louder and louder as the night moved on, and she felt her cheeks redden with the alcohol.

“This new job wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain blonde would it?” Grantaire said as he settled next to her at the back wall of the café.

She choked on her drink and hissed at him to keep his voice down, leading to a boisterous laugh. He was very open with his homosexuality, and often bloated to his close friends about his previous conquests. Éponine had foolishly told him about the girl (or Cosette, as she now knew) and he now was unable to let go of the idea that she was a secret homosexual besotted with a stranger.

“I just think she’s beautiful and has the life of my dreams. I am envious, that is all!”

He laughed again. “Oh ‘ponine. We’ve all been there. Enjolras and I danced around each other for years until I bit the bullet-“

“I heard he was the one who came on to you?”

“Shh… as I was saying, we wasted all that time pretending not to like each other when really we could have been together the whole time.”

“I’m not a homosexual” She paused, shuffling her feet on the wooden floors before quietly continuing “Why would a girl like that ever look at a girl like me.”

Grantaire’s face softened. “People surprise you ‘ponine. Anyway, all clean and shiny like this and you look as nice as any lady. A pretty dress and I’m sure no woman could resist you.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “This still doesn’t mean I’m into women”

“Of course” he said, winking as he left her alone.

She left the café when it was dark, walking to her family’s home in the cold. She had a watch and chain she’d pocketed from a wealthy passer-by that should be enough to appease her father and allow her some shelter for the night.

The dark dingy room greeted her. The mouldy smell hit her immediately- and something rancid too. Her mother’s cooking, perhaps, or their chamber pot hadn’t been emptied today. Her mother and sister were asleep near the dwindling fire, while her father was nowhere to be seen.

“Probably robbing someone” Éponine thought. She put one of their last logs on the fire, knowing she would probably take a beating for that tomorrow, and curled up under some of the rag scraps she had once sown crudely together to form a blanket. She was too exhausted to think too hard about her day, expect to allow herself a few seconds of happiness. Maybe she could make an honest living after all, whilst also being so close to her beloved stranger. Maybe it would all be okay.


	2. Ouvert

Cosette awoke to the sound of her father’s whistling. An aria burst through their thin plaster walls, somehow grating and gracing her simultaneously. She gazed over to the light, where her wooden window pane was misty with drops of condensation, and her thin curtains were sticking slightly to the glass.

If her father was up and whistling, it probably wouldn’t be long until he came in to tell her the plans for the day. She hoped they would visit the parks today, so they may buy more flowers for their garden. The woman who worked the flower cutting stall never took breaks, winter through summer, and her father liked to make sure her time spent in the cold was well rewarded.

She left her bed to the cool winter air and kneeled for her morning prayers. Her father had told her the importance of praying for those less fortunate than her, and today she focused her thoughts on the pregnant woman she had seen wandering the streets last week, still punting for work as a whore. Her feet were bloody and bare, while her clothes were scrappy and had clearly been ripped off her several times. Her father had pressed 15 francs into her filthy hands, and she had been angry when he didn’t want to use her services.

“Think you’re too good for me Monsieur?” She had called behind them as they walked on, spitting at their backs. Cosette had turned at the shout and saw the woman’s face contorted into a look of unimaginable confliction. She could not stop the pity she felt for this woman, and when they were home her father had explained how sometimes people had very little choice in the direction of their lives.  This was a lesson she saw the effects of everyday, from the toddlers she saw wandering around, motherless, to the old women left to die in the gutters of the city streets.

She prayed twice every day. Her faith had been unwavering for years, since the nuns had saved her and her father. Recently, however, she had begun to wonder how any God could allow the suffering she saw daily, or the wretched lives playing out around her.

Still, there was little else she could do. Morning prayers done, she changed into a dark green satin dress. The bodice was tight, with a delicate neckline, lined with a golden embroidery of flowering branches. The sleeves were long and slim to her skin, and her skirt was held slightly away from her by a petticoat. She brushed her hair with the gentle hairbrush and began to pin it into a bun. She only had four truly presentable dresses, and none were greatly fashionable, but she treasured them all. Her father did not like to spend money wastefully, but he was also keen for her to be happy; small gifts of hair clasps and necklaces meant far more than just one more shiny accessory.

He bought them at market stalls lining streets she was not allowed to visit. It was not uncommon for her father to return home after a trip with his pockets far lighter than when he’d left, but he never seemed to truly mind.

She left her room, a poetry book in hand, to walk down the creaky stairs and meet her father for breakfast. He had already been out that morning to buy some bread, and the smell of it being fried in egg caused her to smile.

“Good morning!” he called from the stove. He served the hot fried bread with a small pansie sitting in-between them.

She looked at the white flower, studying the pink freckles. “A new addition for our garden, father?”

“I couldn’t resist. Perhaps it can go in your new window box, when I get around to making it.”

Cosette laughed. He’d been ‘getting around to’ that window box for years now, never seeming to have the time.

“May we go to the parks today Papa? I so wish to visit the pond and see how the frogs are getting on.”

“I have business to attend to today, but we can go tomorrow.”

“Or I could go alone.”

His head snapped up. “Cosette… you know you cannot. It is dangerous out there, especially for a young woman alone. Please, do not keep asking me like this; it breaks my heart to tell you no.”

“Maybe if you allowed me to make friends, I would not have to be alone! I often see young groups of women walking together yet I have no one.”

“You have me. Is that not enough?”

She realised how hurt he was too late. “Of course, Papa, of course you are enough… I got carried away. I’m sorry.”

And she meant it. Her life was truly wonderful, full of all the love her father could give. He had carved her a world of comfort, and she was so grateful for it. Yet, it was not enough. She supposed it was human nature to yearn for more; to yearn for the love her poets so adoringly explained. In all, she was lucky, but she could not help to think of the light that could be awaiting her.

Apologising again, she finished eating her food in silence. He told her it was okay, and she could tell he meant it by the way he tapped her fingers gently by her knuckles.

After he left to go to his business, Cosette took the flower and planted it next to the other winter flowers. Heather surrounded her and brushed her face lovingly while she knelt. Once she was alone, she felt smothered by the silence. If only she had friends, if only she had a lover.

She could leave the home while he was out, she knew, but that would be deeply unkind. He would be so hurt by her dishonesty, and so worried for her safety that it would completely outweigh the benefits.

She lay on the pavement of the garden. It was a cool morning, but since she was a child, she had never felt the cold. She gazed up into the clouded wide sky, pass the dormant rose bushes and dwindling ivy. As she readjusted her head movement caught her eye. In the uppermost attic window of Madame Durand’s home there was a flash of blue fabric. That window was much too high for Madame Durand’s feeble legs to carry her, and that blue colour was suited to youth, not an elder woman. The colour reappeared- this time with a body. A brunette girl was dusting the window panes.

Cosette waved. Her father had been pestering Madame to get a housemaid for years, and it seemed she had finally relented. Good.

The brown-haired girl eyes met hers. She stilled, her hand frozen around her feather duster, while her face dusted a dramatic pink. Maybe Cosette had startled her? She waved again, smiling brightly.

The girl swooned and fell backwards, stumbling to the floor.

Cosette was on her feet instantly. That girl must have fainted! Madame Durand would be unable to assist her alone, too weak to pick her up, or even climb the stairs with some smelling salts.

Running through the house to pick up their wooden basket of medicines, and the key to Madame Durand’s home, Cosette left her house to knock frantically of Madame’s door.

After there was no reply for a minute or two, she let herself in.

“Madame? Madame Durand? It’s Cosette!”

“Mademoiselle Cosette? Whatever are you doing here?” A voice burst through the ceiling.

“Your housemaid fainted! I saw her through the window, and she fell from her chair!”

“Oh, my goodness. Quick, get up there child; you know my knees will make me too slow.”

Cosette ran up the wooden stairs, her heart thumping in her ears. The first time she had left her home without father, and it was under such dramatic circumstances. She had only ever been in Madame’s attic once, and it was many years ago. She had been searching for the framed drawing of her father that she had discarded in anger long ago, and in her old age had decided to let sleeping dogs lie and present his image once more on her mantlepiece.

She knocked on the door. “Madame? I-I saw you fall. Are you okay?”

There was no response. Cosette turned the handle and let herself in.

On the dusty floor was the girl, her limbs delicately sprayed from the chair she had been standing on, one leg left on the seat. Her skirt had risen to show an inch of skin above her knee, and Cosette found herself blushing. Of course, she had seen far worse over the years, the breasts of many a street whore, but something about this girl, with the glow of the morning light bathing her tanned skin, made it seem indecent. She pulled her leg off the chair, and then rearranged the skirt so it covered her to her ankles.

The girl had very distinguished features up-close. Her nose was large and slightly crooked, but her lips were half open, complimenting her delicately closed eyelids. Her hair was curled, and longer than fashionable, but it had an untamed and startling personality to it. This girl, whoever she was, did not waste the same hours Cosette did pinning and brushing her hair, and instead allowed it to flow and catch the morning’s light without the stifling veil of a bonnet.

Cosette reached into her basket and grabbed her smelling salts. She held them under the girl’s nose, and, whilst shaking her shoulders, she waited for her to awake.

The eyes opened to reveal a deep, dark brown colour. Her pink mouth opened and closed whilst she attempted to sit up- only to find herself firmly held down by the blonde’s hands.

“H-hello. How are you feeling? I think you fell off your chair.” Cosette smiled again and tried to maintain the gentle pressure on the girl’s shoulders. She was in no state to stand up, not yet.

“You’re beautiful” The girl said, her eyes misty. “So beautiful.” She reached a hand up to touch her hair but stopped just short.

She fell under again. Cosette’s father had told her of how, when she used to faint as a child, she would often forget where she was (or that she was safe) for a few hours until she regained true consciousness.

Cosette carried her down the stairs and laid her onto a sofa in one of Madame’s many rooms. She left briefly to explain what had happened to the old woman, before returning. She mopped the girl’s forehead with cool water before helping herself to an abandoned poetry book.

Something told her she was going to be here a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get you a girl who faints when you make eye contact ammiright  
> This hasn't been proofread! :)  
> Fran xx

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @illegallyjeanvaljean   
> tell me what you think! <3


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